Now, it`s the turn of Van Peebles` son, Mario, to make his feature debut. The result, ``New Jack City,`` distantly refers to the blaxploitation films of the `70s, but it is clearly the work of a comfortable second-generation sensibility, much closer to the puffy conventions of a TV cop show than it is to any convincing sense of the streets.

Like many of the blaxploitation films-which were routinely condemned by community groups for their ``negative`` imagery-``New Jack City`` is centered on an anti-social figure: Nino Brown, a successful drug dealer played with a genuine edge by Wesley Snipes.

Nino has built his empire on prohibition, selling not whiskey but crack

(and it is Snipes` Cagney-like intensity that makes the film worth seeing). Gifted with an innate organizational sense and a talent for imaginative violence, Nino soon has most of New York under his control, including the literal possession of an apartment block he has converted into an armed fortress.

Unlike the blaxploitation heroes of old, Nino has a moralistic nemesis-an undercover police officer, Scotty Appleton (rapper Ice-T, in a competent acting debut), whose schoolteacher mother was murdered by a drug addict and who bears a considerable grudge.

The film is fascinated by Nino but duty-bound to Scotty, who delivers another glum sermon after each of Nino`s spectacular exploits.

Scotty`s moral certainty may be uplifting, but it is also witheringly dull. The movie has no sense of temptation and no real taste for revolt-it`s a good little film that knows its place.

Van Peebles` direction has a by-the-numbers competence but no discernible personality. The film`s only oddball touch is a down-in-the-cast appearance by former yuppie icon Judd Nelson, playing a crazed outlaw cop of the ``Lethal Weapon`` school. He seems to be having a good time.

``NEW JACK CITY``

(STAR)(STAR)

Directed by Mario Van Peebles; written by Thomas Lee Wright and Barry Michael Cooper; photographed by Francis Kenny; production designed by Charles C. Bennett; edited by Steven Kemper; music by Michel Colombier; produced by Doug McHenry and George Jackson. A Warner Bros. release; opens March 8 at the Broadway, Burnham Plaza, Chestnut Station and outlying theaters. Running time: 1:37. MPAA rating: R. Violence, strong language, brief nudity.